One of the negative aspects of a customer's experience at typical retail stores, such as grocery stores, is the long time spent in a checkout lane. If lines are too long, customers may simply forgo the transaction and leave the store without making a purchase, which can be costly for the retailer and can be an inconvenience for the customer.
Many retailers have installed self-checkout lanes with scanning equipment to allow more checkout lanes to be available to the customers. The additional lanes are intended to speed up the checkout process. However, because of their inexperience with the operations of the self-checkout point-of-sale (POS) equipment, customers may spend more time during the checkout process. It may require more time for customers to learn the processes and for employees to teach customers how to use the equipment. Because of the uncertainty they feel when using the equipment, some customers may become frustrated and dissatisfied with the checkout experience.
Therefore, a need exists for speeding up the checkout process at a retail establishment. In addition, a need exists to be able to more effectively scan products without the need for rescanning. Furthermore, a need exists for providing adequate feedback to the cashier, or to the customer in a self-checkout lane, regarding whether or not the products have been scanned properly.